On 26 Mrz., 20:41, Virgil <vir...@ligriv.com> wrote:> In article> <f44274da-1a9e-4808-a1f6-1b253ff35...@z18g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,>>>>>> WM <mueck...@rz.fh-augsburg.de> wrote:> > On 26 Mrz., 00:08, Virgil <vir...@ligriv.com> wrote:> > > In article> > > <efb405f6-8b50-4aff-a689-501d4a3da...@l9g2000yqp.googlegroups.com>,>> > > WM <mueck...@rz.fh-augsburg.de> wrote:> > > > On 25 Mrz., 21:43, Virgil <vir...@ligriv.com> wrote:>> > > > > > That is the question too. Why has never anybody written the complete> > > > > > decimal- or binary expansion of a periodic rational?>> > > > > Everyone who tried died of boredom before finishing.>> > > > In brief: It is impossible.>> > > It is also unnecessary, which is how the boredom arose.>> > If uncountably many real numbers should be distinguished ort be> > applied for any mathematical reason, then all infinitely many digits> > of each of them have to be written>> There are sufficient proofs that there must be more reals than names for> them,

and that there must be Gods

> so that while they must exist, most of them are forever unnameable.>> Such existence is certainly no less believable than that in gods,> angels, demons, life after death, etc.

No! You got it!! It is precisely as believable.

Here is your most sufficient proof: It is the Cantor diagonal. Haveyou ever observed a diagonal that defines a single number?

Every digit and every initial segment of any given diagonal belong toan infinite set of rational numbers. Even if you start with a listcontaining all rational numbers, then the diagonal differs from everyrational number by some digit, but on the other hand, up to everydigit the diagonal does not differ from an infinite set of rationalsthe cardinality of which is not less than the cardinality of allnumbers in the list.

So, at no digit of the diagonal, the set of different rationals islarger than the set of not differing rationals.